Bonds of Trust
by Ada C. Eliana
Summary: Preseries. When the boys go missing, salt lines intact and barely any trail to follow, Jim brings a group of hunters together to find them. However, John is forced to recognize that hunters can be just as dangerous as their prey. Wee!chesters!
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Well I'm here with a new Supernatural story - my first crack at wee!chesters and real John characterization so let's see how it goes!**

**Disclaimer: **I owe too much money to student loan companies to own Supernatural...

**Summary:** When the boys go missing, salt lines intact and barely any trail to follow, Jim brings a group of hunters together to find them. But what was John once heard about 'too many hands stirring the pot'?

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**Bonds of Trust**

By: Ada C. Eliana

Chapter 1

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The boys had already been missing for 24 hours when John stormed in to Pastor Jim's house, desperate for help. He hadn't been hunting all that long, really. Sam was only five after all, and he hadn't really gotten started until Sam had been about three. Two years was not enough time to figure all of it out, definitely not enough experience to figure out what took his boys.

Jim assured him on the phone that he would call in some more seasoned hunters to help, and though normally John would have balked at getting more people involved this time he knew he had no choice.

He was a little surprised by the people Jim called in though.

As he entered the small kitchen his eyes immediately darted to Daniel Elkins, sitting at the table with that look he got when he just wanted someone to tell him what to shoot. John got to know Daniel quite well, he was the first hunter he studied under, excellent marksman and able to improvise at a moment's notice, he taught him a hell of a lot. Daniel was a good hunter, but he focused mainly on vampires, though he knew about all sorts of other creatures, researching other beings, finding patterns, really was not his forte. Of course for every ten or so general hunters there were one or two specialists who could whip up a pattern and way to destroy their supernatural being of choice with a second's notice.

That thought inevitably had him turning to where Bobby Singer stood in the corner of the room, holding a paper in front of him. John knew Bobby to be a demon expert, one of the best, as Jim had said when he sent John to him six months ago for help figuring out what killed his wife. So the sight of him standing there in his baseball cap with a shotgun under his arm should have allayed John's fears, but instead made him more worried. If Jim had called Bobby here then that meant he must have been relatively sure they were after a demon. And demons were scary shit, so much more difficult to hunt and destroy than a spirit or a wendigo.

Bobby was in deep conversation with someone John had never seen before. A woman, roughly Bobby's age, with curly black hair pulled back, wearing a hip holster with two pistols on her belt. She was pointing at the paper in Bobby's hand, frowning and explaining something.

In the other corner, leaning against the counter were Joshua Carey and Timothy Johnson. John knew both in passing, and could not help but be a little surprised at the large turnout to Jim's summons.

"Oh John, good," Jim said from the table, standing up to greet him. The other hunters had known he was there from the moment he walked in and glanced at him in greeting. The woman in the corner's eyes shot up as she surveyed him, as if sizing him up. John returned her gaze until her dark eyes dropped back to the paper.

John sat down beside Jim, exhausted but needing to know what was happening to his boys. "You call enough people, Jim?" John sighed, glancing at the crowd.

"Hopefully, John. I thought it best that we be prepared for anything. I called Daniel first, and from what he pulled together we thought it could possibly be a demon, so I brought in Bobby and Teresa – between the two of them they can figure out any demonic pattern. Joshua and Tim just happened to be here when your call came in, decided to stick around and help."

John briefly thought of too many hands stirring the pot but kept his mouth shut.

"Have you found anything?" John asked, looking up at Bobby.

"Considering you haven't gotten any ransom notes and anyone who's been watching you lately would know you don't have two buttons to rub together let alone pennies, we looked into some different theories," Jim introduced the subject, John barely glanced at him, waiting for Bobby to speak up.

"Teresa and I checked out the motel on our way here," Bobby offered. "Like you said, no sulfur, and no tracks, even the salt lines were undisturbed. Which means we're dealing a person – and someone who knows their stuff. This area has quite a number of missing person's reports, all children, and all in sets of two." John raised his eyebrows and then the woman – Teresa – stepped forward and placed a map on the table before him.

"This area's disappearances are most likely linked to a form of sacrifice. What we're looking at here is a very specific type of demon. The demon will be relatively lower-level, unable to possess for long periods of time. It takes the form of a woman, and usually resides in the forest. These demons makes deals with the neighboring populations, agreeing to remain in the forest and do them no harm so long as each year it is offered a human sacrifice of two children – usually siblings," she said in a formal, clipped tone. "The agreement binds the demon to a tract of forest and every year two children 'disappear'. We've traced the patterns of demonic activity in the area your sons disappeared from and have ascertained the demon to be in these woods," she pointed to the part of the map where someone had drawn a large 'X' "That's approximately forty minutes north from here."

"When does… are they… is…" John was at a loss for words, trying to process the information he had just been delivered.

"Midnight during the first new moon of November, John," Bobby spoke up. "Which is tomorrow by the way. This all means that we need to work fast." John rested his head in his hands for a moment.

"But when you say sacrifice…"

"I brought down one of these demons six years ago. Usually the children are left in a certain location, a cave, a clearing, that's been designated in the past. They won't be hurt before the demon comes out to take them, there's no ritual or anything that you need to worry about. They're okay for now," Teresa explained, and John thought her voice sounded gentle.

"How do we kill it?" John asked, looking around the room.

"You can't exactly kill a demon, John," Bobby said. "What you have to do is perform a ritual exorcism to cast it back into Hell."

"If it was that easy then why would the people have made a deal with this demon?" John asked.

"No one said it was easy," Bobby countered. "These kind of demons don't possess, they're just smoke and shadow, damn near impossible to pin down, let alone exorcise."

"Then what the hell is the plan?"

"To get your boys out of there before the thing shows itself," Bobby responded. Teresa and I are going to try and capture it in a salt circle if we can, so we can send it to Hell, but if not then we're all just gonna get away from those woods."

"Then wouldn't the demon be free to roam?" John asked. Bobby sort of shrugged like it wasn't all that important. "Then you have to exorcise it." He swung his eyes to Teresa. "You said you got rid of one before. How'd you manage that?"

"Two kids were set to be sacrificed. I got there just as the first one was dying. I salt-circled the demon while it was 'eating'; it didn't notice me until it was too late," her tone had softened considerably.

"And the kid?"

"Dead by the time I got there anyway," she said tonelessly, the gentleness in her voice having evaporated. That more than anything reminded him once again why hunters made him wary. Though he might be afflicted with the same condition, the way they could all look passed terrible things, became immune to the horror that would have struck others down bothered him. The child Teresa allowed to be 'finished off' while she spread her salt circle could have been his child, was special to someone, but unimportant in the scope of 'getting the job done'. But then John noticed that her eyes were now averted, and wondered for a moment if he had pegged her wrong.

"So what do we need to do?" John asked.

"Question," Timothy said, speaking for the first time, brushing his longish blonde hair out of his eyes. "How can we be sure that John's sons are really in that forest? It seems you're placing a lot of certainty on that, what if you're wrong?"

Bobby glared at Timothy. "Somehow skipper, I think Tressy and I know a little bit more about demons than you." Teresa mouthed 'skipper' at Bobby while stifling a laugh.

"I'm just trying to make sure all our bases are covered, Bobby," Timothy muttered.

"He has a point," Joshua said. "We don't want to all be running around the woods while Sam and Dean are really elsewhere."

"Bobby," John sighed. "How sure are you?"

"99 percent," Bobby responded.

"What needs to be done?" Jim questioned.

"We need to find the right ritual to use on the demon, if we manage to catch it. We should also plan how we're going to split up and search the forest for the boys," Teresa explained.

"It wouldn't hurt to look into who might've snatched them either," Daniel pointed out. "If the locals are sacrificing kids to protect themselves then there's a good chance they won't be too pleased with us trying to stop them. "

"How did we never notice this was going on?" Joshua piped in. "I mean come on, this close to Blue Earth, where we've all visited countless times? I mean disappearing children never caught our eye at the annual 4th of July barbeque?"

"The locals who set this up are really careful, Josh. If we hadn't been looking for it we might have never noticed it. They go for transients, homeless kids, vacationers, people who can't afford to call the cops, sometimes they even use their own kids," Teresa said.

"Well that's just sick," Timothy whispered.

"But not surprising," Bobby sighed. Teresa left the room and Bobby waited for her to return, carrying a stack of battered leather-bound notebooks with color-coded stripes on the spine and dumping them unceremoniously on the table. Bobby pushed them away from his workspace, and then began to draw lines on the map, dividing it into sections and labeling them A, B, C. "Jim would you mind staying behind and looking for that exorcism?"

"Of course not."

"I think it's in the blue journal, Jim," Tressy said, staring at the stack thoughtfully. "Yeah… because it was after the crossroads demon but before that poltergeist in Rocky Cragg."

"I'll get on it then," Jim sighed, pulling the blue journal out of the stack.

"Okay people let's get a move on. I think our best bet is to split into teams and comb the woods," Bobby suggested.

"I'll take section 'B' Bobby," Timothy volunteered. "And I don't really need a partner, I'm a tracker after all."

Bobby glared at him for a moment before shrugging, "Your choice I guess. Course that leaves one man out."

"I'm going to look into some other possibilities, I'll stay here," Joshua said.

"Alright then, me and… Daniel will take section 'A'. Tressy and John can cover 'C'." Bobby's pause before choosing his own partner was not lost on anyone in the room. "Now the boys probably won't be out there yet, so we'll be looking for a place that looks like the drop-off point. Everyone take a copy of the map, check the area _carefully_ and mark anything you think might be interesting, okay?"

"Sounds good Robert," Tressy said while mock-saluting. "Can we get a move on now or will there be a pep talk?"

"Get going," Bobby huffed.

"Sir, yes sir!" Teresa nabbed a map off of the table and turned to John. "Alright John, let's move out." As they made to leave the room Bobby caught Teresa's eye and mouthed 'watch him' while pointing at John. Teresa nodded, and John, who witnessed the exchange, rolled his eyes.

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**A/N: I would love to know what you thought!**

**Thanks for reading!**

**-Ada**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Thanks to those who reviewed chapter one. I hope you all like this chapter as well!****

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Bonds of Trust 

By: Ada C. Eliana

Chapter 2

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"I still don't see why we couldn't take the bus," Teresa said as she climbed into the Impala, knocking mud off of her boots before resting them on the mats.

"Because it's a Volkswagen hippie-mobile," John said, realizing that maybe offending a stranger who was voluntarily helping to search for his son was pretty rude, even if that stranger did indeed drive a Volkswagen bus complete with oversized flowers and peace signs painted on the doors. Sighing, he said, "And because that would mean you would be driving, and I would really prefer to drive right now."

"Fair enough," Teresa conceded as he pulled out of Pastor Jim's driveway and headed towards the highway.

"So we never really officially met. I'm Teresa DiCarlo," she offered, watching him and wondering what it look like for the steering wheel to explode from the pressure of his grip.

"John Winchester," he practically growled.

"Charmed. So John, what happened to you kids? I just heard that they had been abducted when Jim called me, but I didn't get the whole story."

"I was working a job, the boys had stayed behind in the motel. When I got back they were both gone."

"You left your sons alone while you went off hunting?" she asked incredulously.

"Listen lady, I'm short on patience, so if you're about to start a 'you're a terrible parent!' rant I'd rather you just shove it."

"Sure thing, Johnny," she responded, eyes glinting with irritation. "What were you hunting anyway?"

"Vengeful spirit," John responded, giving her the bare minimum.

"Who was partnered with you?"

"No one."

"You hunt alone?"

"Sometimes. Tim passed this job along to me because it was pretty straight forward," John offered.

"Wow, good luck staying alive if you keep that up."

John did not say anything, but somehow Teresa thought that was more of a rebuke then anything else could have been.

* * *

They rode in silence for a long while, John's hands tight on the steering wheel as he thought about Sam and Dean, kidnapped, possibly about to be left tied up in the woods to be consumed by a demon that preyed on sacrificial children.

He really needed to get his mind off of this.

"So what was with the look Bobby gave you before we left? He partner me with you so you could keep me in line?" he asked gruffly. Teresa glanced at him from where she was slouched in the passenger seat, staring out the window. The sunlight glanced across her face and revealed a couple of well-healed scars on her cheek and neck.

"Well somebody's got to," she said.

"Excuse me? You don't even know me."

"I mean because you're the worried parent. Geez John it wasn't anything personal. You must be having a difficult time right now balancing 'father' and 'hunter'. Somebody has to stick close to you, make sure you don't do anything stupid." She shrugged again, then began fiddling with the buttons on her military-grade coat.

"And Bobby thought that maybe a woman's gentle presence could keep me in line?" he snorted. He didn't exactly mean to disrespect Teresa, but nothing could keep him calm right now, much less some random female hunter he'd never met.

"I think you'll find my presence to be anything but 'gentle' John. And as far as what Bobby may or may not have been thinking, the truth is that me and him have the most knowledge about what we're looking for so we had to split up. And Daniel isn't too thrilled about the whole 'demon' thing, so Bobby had to choose who would make his afternoon worse – him or you. I'm guessing he picked you and so shoved you off on me to take care of. But don't worry, I'm sure it was a tough choice." Her tone dripped with condescension.

"You sound like you know Bobby pretty well."

"I've known Bobby a long time," she said as she stared at the white lines of the road ahead of them, wondering why John had suddenly become chatty after almost 20 minutes of silence.

"How long is 'long'?"

"Since about… '73, '74? I don't really remember. Wild times though, I promise you that. But Bobby's a good hunter, and a great hunting partner. There are a lot of bastards in the world of hunting, John. Jackasses who would more than likely leave you to die if it suited them. That's why we have our little group with Father Jim, help to sort through the rabble."

"You sound like you have some experience with this."

"Well let's just say I can't quite forget the sight of my hunting partner's fleeing back while I bled out in the fucking desert," she said moodily.

"How did you get into this anyway?" he asked.

"What do you mean?" she questioned, suddenly guarded.

"You've known Bobby since maybe 1973, you must have been pretty young then, how did you end up hunting?"

Having anticipated that question, Teresa sighed and gave the standard answer she used to get curious hunters to back off. "That's a long story, John. I started up in the late '60s. Back then our go-to guy was Father Cristiano, not Father Jim. He helped me out a lot in the early years."

"But why?"

Teresa gritted her teeth. Apparently John was not the type to take a hint. "It's always for the same reason as everyone else isn't it?" she said, and she paused to turn back and look him in the eyes. "I lost someone I loved, there were definitely demons involved, and I couldn't live with myself unless I sought out the truth."

John's mouth went slightly dry. He had noticed loss to be a contributing factor to a career in hunting, it was why he had gotten into it after all. But for him it was all still raw, probably always would be. Teresa spoke of it matter-of-factly, years after the fact. John only prayed that when Sammy was 18 he still wouldn't be searching for Mary's killer. "And what did you find?"

"Not enough. Katrina disappeared without a trace, the only evidence left behind was the murdered priest of the church she had sought safety in. I met the demon responsible once, he decided it was more amusing to let me live than to kill me. He also told me that Katrina was dead. I never found her body, I probably never will, and I doubt I'll ever really know exactly what happened to her."

"How do you stand that… the not knowing?" John asked quietly.

"It's hard. I mean I'm sure you know that," she said softly. "Katrina wasn't… she was a sweet, gentle person and she didn't deserve it. And that burns, it always has. But I nearly destroyed myself and everyone around me searching for answers when the truth is those answers might not even be out there. Yeah the demon told me why he picked Katrina, why she died, but it didn't tell me everything else, what she was feeling, where she went when she disappeared, if she was frightened, if she had any idea that she was going to die, if she needed me there with her… if it hurt when she was killed…"

There was emotion in her voice, and so much that John could commiserate with, so much that he could understand. He had met a lot of hunters since he started out, and he had always felt defensive, as if none of them could possibly know what he felt like, the pain each day caused him. But he decided that maybe this Teresa DiCarlo woman was the first one who actually knew what it was like. And so he took a chance, went out on a limb, was honest with her. Even John Winchester needed someone to talk to about these things every now and then. And, gentle or not, sometimes sharing with a woman really was easier.

"My… my wife was murdered by something," John breathed quietly. "I just… I didn't know anything about what was out there, and when I saw her… pinned to the ceiling, burning alive… I just… I couldn't figure out what to do. And everything seemed dangerous, I felt like I couldn't trust my own shadow to not turn on me at some point. The more I learned… the better it's gotten, but I can't lose my boys, not to this, not to a demon."

Teresa regarded him silently for a moment and then said, "We do our jobs right and you won't have to."

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"You got a compass, Winchester?" Teresa asked as John popped the trunk to the Impala and lifted the false bottom.

"Of course," John responded, grabbing the compass and some other supplies – mainly a rifle and some rock salt. He shoved the salt into his pockets along with some extra shells. The ride up had been interesting, but something about Teresa was bothering him in a way he couldn't really explain. She kept glancing at him when she thought he wasn't looking (and not in the cute flirty way he had gotten used to in high school), as if trying to work through something in her mind. It made him nervous, especially with his boys missing, and his reasonable suspicion that there wasn't enough evidence leading from his motel to this forest. He trusted Bobby, and Bobby trusted Teresa, but that wasn't good enough for him. He had gotten Teresa to talk to him in the car, he would have to try and push her into telling him what she found so interesting about John Winchester.

Teresa looked through her bag, taking inventory before she shouldered it, rifle in hand. She then stared out into the trees, waiting until John was ready to head up the path.

* * *

They tramped through the woods for hours before Teresa requested they take a break. The weather had been surprisingly good for early November, sunny and mild. Teresa sat down on a cliff face with a decent view, tossing her rifle on the rock beside her. Unzipping her bag she pulled out two sandwiches and a bottle of water. She tossed John a sandwich and then broke into her own, chewing it thoughtfully.

"What is on this?" John asked, staring at the contents as if it would bite him.

"Smoked mozzarella and capicola," she said as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world. "It's Italian food John, just eat it."

They sat in companionable silence for a while, the sounds of the forest all around them, before John finally broke it. "Who was Katrina to you?" he questioned. "Sister?"

Teresa looked up, dark eyes regarding him as she took a swig of water. "Friend," she shrugged. "But better than friend, companion I guess." She paused for a moment and then smiled shyly. "We both got jobs at this little diner and then played guitars on street corners on our days off. Hardly enough to pay the rent but it was great, you know, living life on our own terms, no demons peering at us from the shadows, not yet. Those were good times, before she started having nightmares and we realized what was after her." Teresa sighed before admitting, "I ran away from home at sixteen John, Katrina was all I had."

There was something in her glances again, something that told John that there was some sort of connection between this story and him, but he just couldn't figure it out.

She startled him when she spoke again. "Well since you're in the caring and sharing mood, how much do you know about your wife's murder, John?" Teresa questioned, curiosity and something John couldn't decipher in her eyes.

"Not any more than what I told you earlier," he answered. Teresa nodded. She seemed genuinely curious to John, but he wasn't quite sure why. "Come on, we have to keep looking for drop-off point or whatever Bobby called it."

* * *

Night had fallen by the time the hunters met up at Pastor Jim's house. Covered in mud and sweat, the group collapsed around the dining room table as Jim brought in dinner for them and discussed their findings.

"Not a shrub or cave or anything that looked like it could be the drop-off point," Daniel sighed. "And by the looks of you, I guess you didn't find anything either Johnny."

"No we didn't," John said, his tone defeated. "Tim, come on, give me some good news."

"There was nothing. Maybe Tressy got the location wrong," Tim shrugged.

"No, it has to be there," Bobby said, "we just didn't look hard enough. We'll rip that place apart tomorrow."

"It'll have to be there, I researched other possibilities, but what Teresa and Bobby came up sounds the most likely to me," Joshua said. "I think what y'all need to ask yourselves though is who kidnapped Johnny's kids? A person is holding them somewhere before setting them up to be sacrificed, maybe we should be looking in to that too, send half the group into the woods and the other into the town?" he suggested.

"Alright then, tomorrow morning we'll head out," Bobby said. "We're all going to need a good night's sleep before then."

* * *

John headed down to the room Jim had set aside for him and of all people – Daniel – to share. Before he climbed into bed, John turned to Daniel and said, "I'm a little surprised that you came." He genuinely was, considering not too long ago Daniel had kicked him out of his house and warned him to never come back again.

Daniel's expression soured. "Whatever I think of you John, I care about what happens to those boys. And don't it just beat all that Jim calls me to help with this?"

"What do you mean?" John asked, anger bristling.

"I told you John, I **told** you. You get involved in hunting, you drag those kids around the country with you and eventually something or someone's gonna decide that they're the tastiest prey out there. You say family means so much to you, that you're doing this for your wife and for your boys, but you're a damn liar John. You're doing this for yourself and no one else."

"Who the hell do you think you are?" John demanded.

"Shut the hell up Winchester! I hope you're happy with yourself Johnny, because if we get there too late tomorrow and those kids die, it'll be no one's fault but your own, and you'll have to live and die with that hanging over your head," Daniel growled.

"You don't realize how lucky you are John. You lost your wife, yes, but you have your kids. You look at the other hunters here – Bobby, Teresa, Tim, Josh – you think they have anyone? You think they have a family and people who love them just for sharing the same blood? You think I have family? Damn it all John, we ended up in this life because of what we lost, and because the revenge was all we had. But you still have a choice, you can have something different. And God help you if when those boys are in your arms again you make the wrong decision."

John opened and closed his mouth, not sure what to say now. He felt emotionally and physically drained and exhausted, and he lacked the energy for the verbal sparring, lacked the will to back up his own righteous claims.

"Get some sleep, tomorrow's gonna be a big day for you," Daniel muttered, lying down and pulling the blankets up to his chin.

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**A/N: Drop me a comment and let me know what you think!**

**Thanks for reading!**

**-Ada**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Thanks to those who reviewed chapter 2, I really appreciate hearing from you. **

**Enjoy chapter 3!****

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**Bonds of Trust**

By: Ada C. Eliana

Chapter 3

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Dean lay with his eyes open, Sam's warm weight stretched across him as the younger boy dozed. Wind blew loud and hard against the sides of the cabin. Dean squeezed his eyes shut, trying not to think about the situation they had found themselves in, tried not to wonder about what the man had planned for them.

The man had forced his way into the motel room with ease, picking the lock while they were sleeping, and wrestling the rifle that Dean had grabbed when he realized the man wasn't John, out of Dean's grip. Dean had tried to fight him, but the man was no lightweight, and easily shrugged off his attacks, heading for Sammy. The handgun he pointed at Sammy's head was more than enough incentive for Dean to stop in his tracks, to give the man control of the situation. Sam watched with wide, bleary eyes, unsure of what to do. The man produced a white cloth from his pocket and expertly pounced on Sam, holding it over his face while still pointing the gun at his head. Sammy bucked and squirmed but the man held him down, and while Dean screamed threats his body went limp. The man dragged Sam onto his shoulder, the gun still pushed against his temple, and motioned for Dean to follow him. As if Dean would just stay behind while he took off with his little brother.

He brought them to a cabin in the woods somewhere, and locked them up in a room. A little while later Sam had finally woken up and they examined their surroundings. The room they were in had only barred windows, and the attached bathroom had no windows. The view the window afforded was of complete wilderness, such that even if Dean were able to escape he had no idea where he would go from there.

The man who captured them had yet to say anything, only entered briefly to leave them food for the day. Afterwards Dean had heard a car pull out of the driveway and he had been gone ever since. Sammy had alternated between hysterical crying and sullen despondency until he tired himself out and eventually fell asleep against Dean.

Dean felt helpless for the first time he could remember since a fire claimed his mother's life. His father had tried to shield him from the truth about monsters and spirits for as long as he could, but over a year ago had given up and told him, taught him a little bit about how to protect himself. But his father never told him what to do to protect himself against a human. They had clearly surpassed the usefulness of "don't talk to strangers." Dean held on to Sam tighter, wondering just what the man had in store for them.

* * *

"I don't like this, Bobby," Teresa whispered. Everyone else had gone to bed, leaving the two demon hunters alone in the sitting room.

"What don't you like?" Bobby sighed. The trek through the woods had taken more out of him then he would like to admit, he was tired and worried and would have liked very much to go to bed. However the look on Teresa's face had made him hang back when the others left, wondering what was on her mind.

Her dark eyebrows were furrowed. "The salt lines weren't disturbed. I keep coming back to that," she answered. "Why would they have been so careful crossing the salt?"

Bobby didn't respond immediately thinking it over. "That is odd. If they were going to sacrifice the kids anyway why would they leave the salt in place?"

"How would they even have known why the lines were there?" Teresa pressed. "Too much about this case doesn't add up. Dean is too old."

"What do you mean?"

"When I faced this type of demon last time I went through the missing children, the oldest was never older that seven, small enough to be trusting, to take candy from strangers you know. The kids never disappeared from a motel, they would be taken from diners or bathrooms or stores."

"What are you saying Tressy, that we're barking up the wrong tree here?" Bobby questioned, nerves frazzled. They needed to be right about this, because if they weren't then that meant Sam and Dean were just gone, and that was unacceptable. He never meant to get attached to those kids when John Winchester first dragged them to his house, but he had and there was no going back now.

"I'm saying that something's not adding up. I don't even want to suggest this, but there's the possibility this whole thing is an inside job."

"You think a hunter planned this?" Bobby said, voice low and disbelieving.

"When you walk into a room you always step forward as if there were a salt line, it's habit, you don't even know you're doing it. It's habit for all of us."

"That doesn't mean –"

"I'm not sure about this, Bobby, but we're going to have to be careful, alright? It's not me, it's not you, it's definitely not John. It can't be Tim or Josh or Daniel, but there are plenty of people who might've done this. I mean, how many people know about John? He's been to Harvelle's, and you know the type of people who go there – Gordon and Kubrick and Davis are just the tip of the demented iceberg."

"What do you suggest then Tressy? If you're right, then what do we do?"

"Bring a loaded gun with you tomorrow – just in case," Teresa suggested.

"But why John's kids, why would any of them want to go after his boys?" Bobby asked.

Teresa thought of her oldest journal and the pages filled with plenty of reasons why a hunter might want to target at least one of John's kids. She never shared that journal with anyone, but there was always the chance that someone had come to the same conclusions she had, but decided to act in the complete opposite way she would have advised. "I can't be sure, Bobby," she responded, the lie heavy on her tongue. Bobby cocked his head as he studied her, and she could see doubt in his eyes, but this secret was hers for now, not to be shared with anyone, including her closest friend.

"Fine, I'll bring my .38 tomorrow and hope to God that you're wrong about this. We should get to bed now, we have a long day ahead of us."

* * *

"Here's the exorcism," Jim said, passing around typed-up copies of the exorcism right to the hunters assembled in his kitchen, dirty breakfast plates before them.

Bobby read it over, nodding slightly. "Seems simple enough," he decided.

"It's a lower level demon so it can be. The problem is going to be pinning the thing down," Teresa sighed.

"Even if you save the boys, you're still going to need to save that town from the demon," Daniel pointed out.

"Why? Didn't they bring this on themselves? We're talking about people who sacrifice small children!" Tim protested.

"Yeah but think of all the kids and the people who have no idea about any of this who will end up murdered if we let this thing loose," Joshua countered. "If we're going to do this, we're going to do it all the way."

"Can we just focus on getting to the boys before that damn demon does?" John suggested gruffly, running a hand through his hair in agitation. This was already taking far too long. The others turned their attention to John as if they had forgotten he was in the room.

"John's right, it's time to get a move on," Bobby agreed. "John, Teresa, and I are taking the woods, Daniel, Josh, Tim, go through the neighboring towns – Tannersville, Davistown, and Jonesboro , tear them apart searching for those boys or anyone who has seen them, be careful because whoever instigated this might be willing to take you out to cover their tracks." They nodded as they accepted their assignments.

John, Bobby, Teresa, and Jim drove up to the forest in the Impala and Bobby's pick-up truck. Once there, Jim distributed two-way radios between the hunters, keeping the mates himself so he could monitor their progress from the parking area. With time running short it seemed more frugal to search individually rather than in teams so the trio split up. With a departing "good luck", a quick glance between Teresa and Bobby, and encouraging nods, the hunters headed off in opposite directions.

* * *

John could sense the futility in his own actions as he pushed through the brambles and between the trees, calling out for his sons. He was scouring the area Bobby and Daniel had been through the day before, and like them, all he found was a big fat nothing. The area was so dense it was impossible to move through. His mind kept a record of how long the boys had been gone, and what might be happening to them, what might have already happened. A hundred different scenarios, both supernatural and terribly natural ran through his head. If Bobby and Teresa had been wrong about their demon theory then John had little time to come up with a different theory, the trail would be cold, it would be that much harder to pick it up again.

He forced himself to stop halfway through the day, the sun blazing overhead. He had marked his path as he cut through the trees in an attempt to not accidentally cover the same ground twice. Hourly check-ins with Pastor Jim let him know that no one had spotted the boys yet. Teresa had assured Jim that even if the person who had the boys saw them wandering around they would still have to 'make the drop' tonight or else free the demon to massacre their town. He chewed half-heartedly on the sandwich Jim had pressed on him before they left the rectory, feeling more useless than he could remember being since he found Mary pinned to the ceiling above Sam's crib.

He thought about the other hunters, the ones he knew well – Daniel, and Bobby, the ones he barely knew, Joshua, Tim and Teresa. He hated trusting these people to help look for his sons, hated placing their welfare, their survival in the hands of strangers. Trust was never something John gave easily, he had been burned in his youth too many times. He let his guard down when he was with Mary, but losing her put those walls right back up again.

John knew one thing for certain, he would never survive losing his sons. He needed to find Dean and Sam – safe and alive – there was no alternative.

* * *

"Dean, why are we here?" Sam asked. Since waking up Dean's little brother had been questioning him non-stop, as it was now sometime approaching dusk, that had been quite a few questions. Sammy was scared, that much was obvious, but unfortunately there wasn't much Dean could do to allay his fears. For all he knew their father hadn't even realized they were gone yet, if Dad hadn't come back to the motel then he wouldn't be looking for them, and if he wasn't looking for them…

"I wanna go home," Sam cried.

"Me too, Sammy," Dean sighed, pulling his little brother close to him. They were sitting on the bed together, leaning against the headboard.

"What does he want us for?" Sam questioned, playing with the last chicken nugget from the Happy Meals the man had tossed in earlier. Their captor had been pacing the cabin nervously for hours, letting out stifled groans every now and then.

"I don't know, Sammy. Maybe he's… maybe he just wants something from Dad? I'm sure Dad will get us out of here real soon, Sammy."

Dean startled when the door suddenly swung open. The blonde man standing there staring stone-faced at him. Sam clung closer to him and he instinctively placed his body in front of his brother's. When the man's attention turned to Sam, his lip curled slightly in distaste. Dean felt a shudder go through him and tried to edge Sammy out of the man's view.

"Time to go, kids," the man said.

"Where?" Dean asked petulantly.

"We're going for a little walk in the woods, and I expect you kids to be quiet, or else," he snarled, a length of rope coiled in his hands. He tied each of the boys' wrists together, then connected their bonds with a longer rope whose end their kidnapper held onto – a leash if Dean ever saw one. Unfortunately, the way he tied it meant that Sammy would closet to the man, in front of Dean. Dean stared forlornly at the knots, and their intricacy, knowing that they would be nearly impossible to undo. Sam was crying silently, tears streaking down his round face. The man led the way out of the cabin, pulling tightly on the rope, causing Sammy to stumble, and forcing him to walk directly behind the man, with Dean staying beside his brother and trying uselessly to break free of the rope.

However, as they left the cabin and headed for the chilly wilderness, Dean noticed one thing that had him confused. A thick line of salt had been laid before the door, just like their father did to ward off ghosts and demons. He was under the impression that hunters were the only people who did this, so why would their kidnapper have laid salt lines?

* * *

The man was careful as he led them through the woods. He continually stopped and crouched down, checking the forest floor for tracks. Dean stayed as close to Sam's side as he could, wanting more than anything to put his arms around his little brother, but his bound hands unfortunately made that impossible. Sam was shaking and every now and then a tear would trail down his face.

"Hmm, someone's been through here," the man said. "Tracks are too big for Tressy, had to have been John or Bobby," he mumbled. Dean's heart shot up at the mention of his father's name. His father was out looking for them, and Uncle Bobby too, there was no way this guy could stand up against them.

The man looked up at the darkening sky and sighed. "She'll be out soon, and this will all be over." He sounded tired, almost resigned. "Come on kids, and remember, I don't want to hear any sound out of you two."

* * *

"Almost there," the kidnapper whispered as he led the boys deeper into the brush. Sam stumbled and fell, but the rope tied to his hands jerked, dragging him forward. Dean helped him up as best as he could while trying to keep up with the man who seemed to suddenly be moving in a frenzy. He stopped short, Sam and Dean crashing into him as he stared out into the woods. He motioned for the kids to be quiet, and then tied his end of the rope around a tree. He quietly unzipped his bag and pulled out a rifle, picking through the woods and away from them carefully.

Just beyond their position was John Winchester, back to them, wandering through the woods with a flashlight guiding the way, searching for the boys. The man approached John from behind, silently skulking towards him.

Dean furiously worked with the rope determined to get free and get to his father. He watched as their captor lifted his rifle into the air as he came up on John. "DAD!" Dean screamed in warning. John spun towards him as the rifle dropped, slamming into his head and rendering him unconscious. The man knelt beside John's prone form, drawing more rope from his pocket and tying the oldest Winchester to a nearby tree. He went through John's pockets, emptying the Holy Water from the flask, pulling the clip out of his gun, and dispersing his rock salt into the brush. He came across a piece of paper and ripped it up, scattering the pieces into the wind.

He stomped back over to Dean and Sam with anger present in his expression. "Keep your damn mouth shut, kid!" he fumed, pulling a bandana from his bag. He gagged Dean with it and then untied the rope and dragged them deeper into the woods.

* * *

**A/N: Thanks for reading! Let me know what you thought!**

**-Ada**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: I'm headed to Italy tomorrow for four months, hoo boy. Anyway, I'll be updating from there sometime soon hopefully, so do not lose hope if this story seems a bit delayed.**

**Thanks to everyone who has reviewed so far!**

**Disclaimer: Refer to first chapter

* * *

****Bonds of Trust**

By: Ada C. Eliana

Chapter 4

* * *

When John woke to a splitting headache and a ringing in his ears the sun had long since set. He made to stand, and that was when he noticed that he was sitting up, propped against a tree with rope wound around his chest tying him to it. "Goddamn," he muttered as he pulled against the bonds. His wrists were pulled around the trunk and knotted, and whoever tied them knew how to make knots tight and difficult to undo. 

But damn it all, he had heard his kid's voice, he heard Dean call out to him, and that meant that the boys were here, in the woods, and probably being forced to the drop off point by whoever knocked him out. John struggled against the ropes, and as he did so felt for the pocket knife he had stashed in the back pocket of his pants. He pushed his back up closer to the tree and strained his fingers to reach for his pocket, straining against the rope as it dug into his wrists. After some more creative maneuvering and awkward movement that ended up with him angling his rear towards the tree trunk, John grabbed the pocket knife. He moved back into a more relaxed position and caught his breath for a moment before opening the knife with fumbling fingers. He sawed at the ropes until his left hand came free, but movement somewhere nearby stilled his hands. He held his breath as he heard leaves crunching under boots, and waited for his attacker to reveal himself. The footsteps drew closer, until he was right behind John.

"Winchester? What the hell?"

John sighed with relief as he heard Bobby's voice. "Here, help me cut these ropes," John said.

"What happened?"

"Whoever kidnapped Sam and Dean happened. I heard Dean's voice and then someone hit me from behind. They're in the woods now, we have to find them."

"We will," Bobby assured him, ripping away the last of the ropes and freeing John.

John grabbed his weapons and then he and Bobby hurried West, following the footprints on the forest floor.

* * *

Movement through the trees caught Teresa's attention and she spun just in time to see a blonde head duck between branches, heading towards the trail out. "Tim?" she whispered in confusion. Tim was supposed to be searching the town, not the woods. She watched him silently, waiting until he was out of earshot to work her way towards the direction he came from. Her heart race increased and she remembered the conversation she initiated with Bobby the night before, the idea that a hunter could've been behind this. But she knew Tim, and Tim wouldn't… Teresa shook her head, now was not the time for emotions. She had to go about this as if Tim were a stranger. "Jim, I might be on to something. If I don't call back in, send John and Bobby to section B-12, the Western ridge." 

_"Got it, be careful,"_ Jim cautioned over the line. Teresa nodded but did not respond audibly as she shut off the walkie-talkie and drew a handgun as she cut through the underbrush, boots sliding on fallen needles and leaves. The sun had completely set, and clouds moved to obscure the moonlight. Teresa's flashlight shot a clear beam at the path ahead, but she worried about who else might see it. Snapping twigs could be heard somewhere in the distance behind her, but she pushed forward.

Near the mouth of a small cave Teresa heard the sound of soft crying. She pointed the flashlight into the cave and its beam caught on the faces of two small children who were tied to the interior of the cave. Tressy raced the rest of the way in, gun and flashlight pointing around the cave until she was sure it was clear. She holstered her weapon, instead pulling the bowie knife out of her pocketed sheath and rushing to them.

Metal rings had been pounded into the cave wall, and each boy's wrists were tied to it with a length of rope. The older boy stared at Tressy with fear and mistrust as she approached the younger one, who cowered away from her. "Hey, I'm here to help," she said softly, ripping through the ropes and freeing him. Face streaked with tears, he darted into her arms immediately, fisting his small hands in her jacket as he sobbed. She hugged him back briefly, wanting to comfort him but knowing that she needed to get the boys out of the woods fast. "I'm gonna go free your brother, okay?" she said. The boy nodded, scaling her rather than letting go, so she held him awkwardly on her left side while she cut through Dean's ropes with her right hand.

"Thanks," Dean mumbled, staring at Sam who had hidden his face in the crook of Teresa's neck.

"Let's get you boys out of here and back to your Dad," she said, holding the flashlight oddly in her left hand, and resting her right on Dean's shoulder.

When she reached the mouth of the cave, she saw the dark outline of someone racing through the trees towards her, coming from the wrong direction to be Bobby or John. Carefully, she pried Sam off of her, placing him back on his feet. "Dean, do you know how to use a compass?" Tressy asked the older boy. He nodded with assurance, eyes straying to the direction of the ever-closer footfalls. "Okay good." She pressed her spare compass into his hands along with her extra flashlight, it was lower-powered and would help camouflage them more than her high-powered flashlight would. "Follow this, head South on the trail until you hit the parking lot, Jim's waiting for you there," she said.

"Teresa!" Tim's voice shouted through the trees.

"Go now, quickly!" Teresa whispered pushing them ahead. Dean nodded, grabbed Sammy's hand and took off towards the trail at a run, turning just once to look at Tressy before he disappeared into the trees.

Teresa drew her handgun and turned towards Tim, who had cut through the undergrowth in time to see Sam and Dean escape. She aimed at his head and the parting clouds revealed the anger on his face. "So it was you all along then," Teresa stated calmly, not revealing the sinking feeling in her stomach at discovering it had been Tim after all, Tim who she had known for years and trusted and respected.

"Tressy, you can't let those kids go. This needs to be done!" he cautioned, his 9 mm handgun pointed at her.

"What the hell is wrong with you, they're just children!"

"No," Tim said, shaking his head. "Not the little one. You know exactly what Sam Winchester is, you've known for five years."

"What are you talking about?"

"Don't play dumb with me. You've known all along and you've kept it a secret! I thought we trusted each other just a little bit more than that. I thought you would've shared information like this with me, information that could be the difference between saving this world and watching it be destroyed."

"Tim I don't—"

"I know all about that little side-trip you made to Lawrence, Kansas five years ago while we were researching a phantom attacker in Topeka. I know about Mary Winchester burning on the ceiling, how she fits into the pattern and all of it."

"You read my journal," she said quietly. Everyone knew other hunter's journals were off-limits unless specific permission was given. His reading of her journal – her most important journal where she kept all of the information she had collected on the demon – it was a betrayal, and it stung deep.

"I sure did. I just wanted to take a look at your research, I was just curious about what you've managed to compile after all these years. But boy was I surprised at what I found out. John Winchester's kid is a psychic, a demon-polluted freak."

"You don't know what you're talking about!" Teresa refuted. She thought of the fake ID that read "Insurance Inspector" and remembered shaking hands with a broken John Winchester five years ago. _"Mr. Winchester, I'm from the insurance company. I'm here to inspect your house. I know this is a rough time for you so I'll be quick… I'm sorry for your loss."_ She remembered charred remains of a home and a life, EMF readings through the roof, and sulfur traces so strong that there was no room for misinterpretation.

"I know you feel bad for him because of your friend – because Katrina was one of them – but Tressy, you know better than anyone why those psychics need to be wiped out."

She remembered Katrina, staring at her through bloodshot eyes. _"Teresa… I keep having those dreams about that man… he wants me to do things, terrible things. G__od, what is happening to me? I'm scared, __Tressy__."_

"So you try and sacrifice a fellow hunter's children to a demon?" Teresa said, her voice wavering slightly. "Something you're supposed to be fighting against!"

"It's clean, easy, and not traceable to me. And I'm going to exorcise that demon once she's done with them. But don't you paint me to be the bad guy here, I'm protecting all of us!"

"Tim come on, we can talk about this. You read the journal sure, but you don't know everything, you don't understand everything." Her grip on the gun had not faltered, but she knew she would not be able to pull the trigger on Tim, not after the amount of times they had each other's backs. She trusted him.

"I understand everything," Tim said. "Just leave this alone Tress. Just go back to the parking lot, tell Jim you couldn't find them, pretend none of this happened."

"I can't do that, Tim. And I can't believe that you can! After all of the people we've saved, all of the good we've done, how can you justify this?!"

"You think I want to be responsible for the deaths of two little kids, Tressy? I don't!" he shouted. "But I'm doing this for everyone else, I'm doing this to save people, other people who are going to die if we let that kid grow up. And as for his brother… the older kid wouldn't have stayed behind if I tried to leave him, he was in this with his brother no matter what."

"Tim we can find another way, make sure that Sam doesn't turn. If you've read the journal then you know what happens, you know that they have a choice." A woman with brown hair and eyes filled with pain, _"I mean… I guess we didn't have to do it but… kill or be killed and I was so afraid of dying. If I could do it all over I would've killed myself, death seems like nothing compared to the fear I live with now."_

"Yeah, kill or be killed. Sam's gonna grow up a hunter, he'll be more capable than anyone of taking out the others, it'll be second nature to him by then. There's no 'other way' here Tressy. And no one's asking you to kill him, I'm not even doing it myself. All you have to do is look the other way, let the demon do her job."

"You know I can't do that," Teresa said coldly. She knew exactly how this demon killed, and she would not sit back and let it happen to Sam and Dean.

Tim's mouth hardened into a thin line. He had thought he could explain this to Tressy, that she would understand; she more than anyone knew why this had to be done. But Teresa was stubborn to a fault and Tim knew that what he was doing – taking out Sam Winchester – would make the world a safer place in the long run. "Well you can yell until you're blue in the face, but it doesn't change the fact that those boys are dying tonight."

"No they aren't."

"Oh really? Because the way I see it, they're alone in the woods, and the demon is here, searching for them."

"There are hours to go before midnight!" Teresa rebuked.

"Haha! You really think there's a set time, Teresa? Anytime before sundown and midnight that demon can go after her sacrifice! And she knows these woods better than anyone, those boys are goners, and the threat to us will die with Samuel Winchester."

"Oh my God," Teresa said, fearful for the children in the forest, knowing that if Tim was right, the demon would find them before they could make it to Jim. They were defenseless and vulnerable. Tressy turned to head down the path and follow them.

"Don't move!" Tim shouted.

"Come on Tim, you're not going to shoot me, not after everything we've been through together," she responded, not even facing him as she headed towards Sam and Dean. The shot that splintered the night proved her wrong.

* * *

**A/N: Leave me something nice to open up in Italy!**

**Thanks!**

**_-Ada_**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: No internet connection and a pile of homework were just the right combination to finally get this chapter done, haha! Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: Refer to previous chapter.**

* * *

**Bonds of Trust**

By: Ada C. Eliana

Chapter 5

* * *

The bullet collided with her back and sent Tressy sprawling onto the forest floor face-down. She blacked out briefly and when she opened her eyes again it seemed as if barely any time had passed. 

"I'm sorry, but I can't let you stop me," Tim whispered as he approached her trembling form. Teresa barely managed to restore her grip on her gun as she rolled and fired, ignoring the agony in her back that the movement caused until the bullet his its mark. Her bullet caught Tim in the shoulder, forcing him to his knees. He cried out and clutched at the bleeding wound. Swallowing against the pain he fixed his eyes on Tressy and aimed the gun at her chest.

"Sam Winchester has to die," he said. His hand shook as his finger twitched on the trigger when another shot echoed through the night. The bullet whizzed past Tim's ear, and his eyes widened. Without waiting for the shooter to appear he turned and ran into the trees.

* * *

"Teresa found something?" Bobby barked into the two-way radio at Pastor Jim. "Why the hell didn't you tell me earlier?" 

John pushed out ahead of Bobby, anxiously following the tracks left by one man and two boys, the footprints difficult to see by flashlight and in the dense undergrowth of the forest.

"Well then she's right in the thick of it, the tracks we're following are headed her way, but they're damn near impossible to see in this dark, we should've had Tim in the forest, he'd be able to follow these tracks. If the others call in, get them down here. Hopefully we won't need them but-" Bobby stopped short as the sound of raised voices reached his ears. In front of him John stilled as well, listening carefully for the location of the voices. Bobby couldn't make out the words, but he recognized the higher-pitched voice immediately, and shot forward, his conversation with Pastor Jim all but forgotten.

Bobby broke through the densest of the forest, John at his heels, in time to see Tim's finger flex on the trigger of the gun pointed at Teresa's heart. Instinct overriding his confusion, Bobby raised his gun and fired. However, Tim flinched at just the right moment and the shot went wide, allowing Tim to escape. For a fraction of a second Bobby was torn between who to go towards, but then John's flashlight glanced onto the blood stain blossoming on Teresa's back and the choice was made for him.

"Teresa?! Oh God!" Bobby cried as he appeared through the forest and dropped down beside her, careful fingers inspecting her wound, the flashlight aimed at her back.

"Bobby?" John called, scanning the woods for signs of his boys, and for Tim.

"John! The boys… are headed down… the trail to the lot!" Teresa stammered. "Demon's still coming…" John did not need to be told twice, and barreled down the path, screaming his sons' names. "How bad?" Tressy asked.

"It's hard to tell Tress… I think it missed the spine, and it's not bleeding that badly, so I don't think it got your spleen," Bobby said with relief, rocking back on his heels. "Jesus what the hell happened?"

"Tim kidnapped the boys, he set this whole thing up," Teresa explained between careful breaths, pain igniting her back.

"Why would he do that?"

"I… he just… I'm not sure okay," she said, squeezing her eyes shut, hoping Bobby didn't see through the lie. "Holy mother of God this hurts like a bitch!" she swore, fingers clenched into fists, short nails digging into her palms as she tried to fight against the pain. "Please tell me… you brought the first aid kit."

"I brought the travel size one, left the one with the good drugs in the truck," Bobby sighed.

"Goddammit."

Opening his pack, he pulled out gauze pads and tape. He pressed the gauze against the wound until the blood flow slowed, thanking every deity he could think of for the fact that the bullet appeared to have missed anything vital. Tim had always been a crappy shot.

"Just breathe with it, Tressy," he advised. "You'll be okay. It's not even that bad."

"You have to go after Tim!" Teresa shouted. "He's trying to get those kids killed, you have to stop him!"

He opened his mouth to speak but was cut off by screams from somewhere deep in the woods. Bobby spun, turning towards the South, where the screaming was coming from. "Oh God, Sammy, Dean," Bobby said.

"It's the demon… here… help me up…" Teresa said, holding an arm out towards him.

"Are you crazy? You have a bullet lodged in your back!" Bobby protested.

"We can't leave them out there to fend off that thing. We can't leave John without cover to fight off a demon and Tim. We can at least distract them, hold them back until he can get the boys safely out of here." Bobby didn't know how to argue with this logic. "Either leave me or help me up, someone has to help them."

Conceding, he gently helped Teresa to her feet, pulling her arm over his shoulder, placing his hand on her waist. He half-carried, half-assisted her further down the trail.

* * *

The flashlight flicking between the path and the compass, Dean tugged his little brother towards the parking lot, towards Jim, towards safety. They heard gunshots and yelling from where they came, and Dean fought against the impulse to turn back. He knew that the man who kidnapped them had been coming through the woods before they took off down the path. And now the woman who rescued them, she was in trouble, maybe dead. She could be dead just for helping them. Guilt clenched in Dean's chest but he tried to shake it off. She knew his Dad, which meant she was probably a hunter, and hunters didn't get taken down that easily. 

"Dean I'm tired," Sam whined as he struggled to keep up with his brother's pace.

"I know Sammy, but you have to keep going, we have to get out of the woods."

"I can't," Sam replied, stumbling as his legs refused to continue at Dean's frenetic pace.

"Well you have to!" Dean argued, pulling harder to get his brother to meet his pace. "That guy could be after us right now, we have to get to the parking lot, that lady said Pastor Jim was there."

"But Dea-" Sam stopped mid-sentence as a strange keening sound reached their ears. The flashlight in Dean's hands began to flicker, and in the dying light he saw the needle on the compass spin uncontrollably.

An ethereal woman, eyes flickering orange in the moonlight, stepped through the trees towards them. Dean instinctively placed himself in front of Sam, despite the fear he felt. She reached out towards him, long claws on her fingertips. Dean pushed Sam backwards, stopping when he heard the younger boy gasp as his back hit a tree. Her image seemed smoky, the body warping as she stared at them, eyes lingering possessively on Dean. Then she shifted her gaze, orange eyes meeting Sam's frightened gaze.

The minute their eyes locked together Sam screamed.

* * *

"SAMMY! DEAN!" John shouted, running through the forest, branches snapped against his face as he tore down the path, searching desperately for his sons. He heard Sam scream and pushed himself to run faster. His heart was beating fast in his chest and his legs burned as he ran desperately towards the sound of his son's voice.

* * *

Sammy felt as if there was fire in his veins, and he screamed, clawing at his skin. His eyes were locked with the demon's, and Sam was incapable of looking away, even as the pain increased and he tried to release the heat under his skin, make a break so it could get out. The demon made to approach him and Sam screamed again, tears falling down his face. Dean lunged at her angrily and turned to look at him, ending her connection with Sam. Sam cried, the heat gone from under his skin, but the memory of it still with him. He closed his eyes and covered them, wanting more than anything to never see the demon's eyes again. 

Annoyed by Dean's interference, the demon simply moved forward with a whoosh of air, grasped Dean's arms with her clawed hand and threw him aside. Dean screeched, landing hard against a tree, the breath knocked out of him. The demon advanced on Sam, wrapping her fingers around Sam's hands, his flesh sizzling on contact as she pulled his hands from his face. "Open your eyes for me," she commanded in a voice that sounded more like hissing than actual speech.

Sam shook his head, sobbing hard now. Behind him, Dean stood, swaying slightly, and stared in horror at the pair. He heard running through the trees and so shouted for anyone, his dad, that lady, his mother, anyone who could help them. "HELP! PLEASE, OVER HERE!"

The demon turned to him in annoyance and merely flicked her hand, sending a telekinetic wave that pinned Dean to the tree. The air was forced out of his lungs, making it impossible for him to scream, and his body remained stuck to the tree.

At Dean's words, Sam's eyes had snapped open and so the demon took the opportunity to lock gazes with him once more. "Such pretty eyes," she crooned. She tightened her hold on the boy's arms, feeling his blood begin to heat up. As soon as it began to boil she would take him. She smiled as Sam stared at her against his will, blue-green eyes filled with tears as his body refused to answer his commands, to turn, run, do anything besides stare at her and wait to die. She so enjoyed watching their fear in their eyes just before she took them. So entranced by Sam's intoxicating fear, she heard the footfalls of a grown man a moment too late to react.

"Get away from my son!" John Winchester yelled, simultaneously firing off shots at the demon. The iron-rounds pierced through her flickering image and she disappeared with a shriek. Sam had fallen as soon as the demon had released him, and now lay there unmoving. Dean on the other hand, when freed from the tree, had run for his brother, kneeling beside him.

"Sammy, get up!" Dean called.

"It hurts, Dean," Sam sobbed, allowing Dean to pull him upright.

"I know Sammy, but we have to get out of here."

John bent down beside the boys and scooped Sam into his arms. "Come on!" he called to Dean, ushering the boy in front of him and to the path leading out of the forest. Flickering light to his left caught John's attention, and the air swirled as the demon returned, recovered from the contact with iron. John continued to run as he shot off another round of iron at her, but this time she had been prepared, and the bullets ran straight through her, causing her form to disappear for only an instant before she reformed.

"Shit, shit, shit!" John repeated as he fired off the last shots and the demon barreled towards him. Just as she might have been about to rip Sam from John's arms, Teresa and Bobby came running awkwardly towards them. Bobby pulled the cap off of a Holy Water bottle and doused the demon with the contents.

The demon screeched and then disappeared, leaving white smoke behind. "Go!" Bobby shouted at John. "We'll fend her off!" John nodded and continued on.

Teresa tried to kneel but appeared to fall to her knees instead as she opened her bag, the pain in her back spiking. She pushed the pain away, focused on the job, just as she had too many times in the past twenty years. From her bag she pulled out a container of salt and a water gun. She then began to draw a salt circle, wide, encompassing the whole clearing where she knew the demon lurked, out of sight, unable to become apparent until the effect of the Holy Water wore off. Bobby met her halfway, completing the circle from the other side. Bobby hauled Teresa to her feet, and the pair stood just outside of the circle, Teresa leaning heavily on Bobby. They both hoped that they had managed to trap the demon. For a moment the forest was too quiet, no birds, no insects, just still air and the sounds of her and Bobby breathing. Both of them waited in silence for the demon to appear.

* * *

"Stop!" 

John heard the words before he saw Tim striding towards him in the dark, his gun pointed not at John's chest, but at Sammy who John was holding. Dean stopped short, staring with wide frightened eyes at Tim. The predicament had proven too much for Dean, and he was barely keeping it together. He just wanted his father to save them, to get them out of the woods and to safety, but the demon and Tim seemed to have other ideas.

"What is this all about, Tim?" John growled, knowing he could not afford to take any chances with Sam's life. Tim was trying to sacrifice his boys to the demon, and had already proven his callousness when he fired on his longtime friend Teresa.

"This is about saving hundreds – maybe thousands of lives!" Tim shouted. Sam stiffened in John's arms, and as John chanced a glance to check on him, Tim's arm darted out and he grabbed Dean, putting his gun to the boy's throat. "Now Winchester, back it up, get back to that clearing."

"Let go of my son, now," John said, trying to keep calm when his heart was beating faster and faster at the sight of Tim's gun pressed against his son's flesh. Dean gave a slight whimper as Tim held on to him tighter.

"I don't think so John. Now go back!"

"Why? What's so important there?"

"Got to get you all together, I don't want anyone jumping out of the bushes at me." His words were harsh, as if he was in complete control, but with the moonlight shining on them, John saw the dark stain on Tim's right shoulder. His right hand held the gun, but the arm was shaking, obviously Tim had taken a bullet. "Now move!"

Sam stirred in John's arms again as he began to back-peddle towards the clearing. He could feel the temperature dropping and knew that the demon was still in that area.

* * *

"You got this covered?" Bobby asked Teresa as the demon began to reform inside of the salt circle. Teresa nodded, waiting for her to appear fully before beginning the exorcism. Trapped within the circle she would unable to fight against it, and at least one of the dangers in these woods would be extinguished. 

"Go cover John," Teresa said. Bobby glanced at her once, saw the blood staining through the gauze on her back, and her awkward posture. As painful as it was to see her so injured, Bobby knew that their priorities right now were stopping the demon, and Tim, and saving John's boys. A hospital would have to wait. He turned down the path to the woods just as Teresa began to speak, smooth Latin pouring over her tongue as she began the exorcism.

* * *

The clouds broke, allowing moonlight to shine strongly on the forest, illuminating Tim, John, Sam, Dean, and Bobby as he came towards them. "Stop right there Bobby! Back up or I shoot Dean!" Tim shouted. "Get back to the clearing!" 

Bobby leveled his handgun with Tim's head despite the warning, and continued forward. "Why Tim? If we go back then Dean will die, but if I shoot you right here and you kill Dean as well then at least I might be able to save Sam," Bobby said conversationally.

"You wouldn't take the chance, Bobby. I know you, you're an old softie. You'd never put the lives of these kids at risk."

"Well either way, going back isn't going to help you. Teresa is exorcising the demon as we speak, so there goes your brilliant plan."

"Damn. I should've known Tress wouldn't lay down and play dead," Tim growled. Even in the low light, John and Bobby could see that he was becoming desperate, what once seemed like such a foolproof plan now coming apart at the seams. "That exorcism rite is long, isn't it?" Tim said after thinking for a moment. "So go, turn around and get back to the clearing. Now!"

Realizing they had no other choice, so long as Tim kept his gun firmly training on Dean, Bobby and John turned around and walked back the way they came.

By now, the demon is screeching and Teresa's voice has not faltered. Even as the footsteps approached from behind, she remained focused.

"Keep going!" Tim yelled and Teresa finally turned, the words still falling from her mouth as John and Bobby walked towards her. "Farther!" Tim shouted at John. He had a strong grip on Dean, who was watching with terror. John was watching Tim closely, walking backwards.

"No! Stop!" Teresa yelled as John stepped on the salt line, creating a break. The effects of the exorcism no longer present, the demon swooped forward with a scream, letting out a blast of telekinetic energy that sent the group airborne. She tore Sam from John's arms with her powers, and Sam began to scream as she touched him.

John tumbled forwards into the underbrush, thorns from the vines that ran along the treeline ripping at his clothes. Bobby's head connected with a tree, and he collapsed to the ground, dazed. Tim was barely fazed by her attack, only lost his footing, and his hold on Dean who rushed to his father's side. Teresa's back collided with a nearby tree, pain rocketing up her spine as she fell on the ground, unable to move.

Sam screamed and Bobby regained his senses, jumping to his feet and lunging at the demon. "No! Sammy!" he cried. At the same moment John stood, going for the demon, and Tim raised his gun. Several screams and one gunshot pierced the air. Tim's shot went wild, and John dove to the ground to avoid it, grabbing for his own handgun. The demon lashed out at Bobby, slicing through his chest and throwing him away from her. He landed in a heap, his head taking a second bash, his consciousness fading and a crimson stain growing on his shirt. John spun, regaining his footing and pointing his gun at Tim. "Drop the gun," John growled.

* * *

During the melee, Teresa tried to get Dean's attention. "Dean!" Teresa whispered to the boy cowering five feet from her. "Dean!" He turned to the sound of his name and saw Tressy sprawled on her stomach, pointing towards a blue watergun that lay between her and the oldest Winchester child. 

Dean reached for the gun, holding it in his hands questioningly. "It's Holy Water, shoot the demon," she said.

Dean nodded in grim understanding, turning to where the demon held his brother. Sam had gone rigid again, eyes locked with the demon, not uttering any sound. Dean could not even tell if he was breathing. He aimed the water gun at the demon's face and squeezed the trigger. The Holy Water connected with its intended target and the demon screamed, releasing Sam. This time she did not disappear, but remained there, white smoke rolling off of her as the water worked to fend her off.

Sam was crying on the ground by the demon's feet, understandably frightened and hurt. "Sammy," Teresa whispered soothingly. "Come towards me, baby. I'll protect you." She managed to sit up, the left side of her body slow in reacting. She knew she had damaged her spine at some point, whether from the bullet, the hit against the tree, or both, she could not be sure, and though it scared her, she pushed it out of her mind, focusing on the boys instead.

Sam wasn't sure if she could protect him. He had just watched everyone injured by the demon so easily, but there was strength in her eyes, and he remembered that she saved him from the demon once before. He shakily stood, and while Dean shot Holy Water at the shrieking demon he ran to Teresa. She hugged him briefly before pushing him behind her and pulling her body towards the break in the salt circle.

"The circle's broken?" Sam asked, pointing to where John's foot had created a break.

"Yes baby, we need to fix it. Can you help me do that?" she asked.

Frightened, Sam swallowed hard as he nodded. "It's easy, don't worry," she said, patting his back. She chanced a glance at Dean and saw he had little water left. In the background she saw John aim his gun at Tim. Bobby had yet to move, blood pouring down his chest. She handed Sam a bag of salt from her pocket, and then took another for herself. He stumbled to the farther side of the break as she began to repair the part closest to her.

* * *

"Alright Winchester," Tim sneered, his own gun pointed at John's head. "Let's see who can get a shot off faster." 

"We could both fire at the same time, that would be fine with me. At least my kids would be safe from you," John responded. From the corner of his eye he saw Sam hurry to Teresa's side, saw Dean with the water gun. He put his trust in her and his kids to trap the demon, trying to distract Tim long enough to give them a chance. If Tim saw what they were doing he gave no indication.

"I'm not a monster, John. I don't want to kill you or Teresa or anyone," Tim said. "I'm just trying to do my job as a hunter."

"By feeding my sons to some demonic bitch?" John asked.

"Fine, fine, let's make a deal. You hand Sam over to me, and Dean lives, how's that?" Tim tried to compromise.

"Why Sam? What's so special about Sam that you think he needs to be killed?"

"Maybe you should ask Teresa that. She can explain it better than I can. Bottom line, Sam is going to be a threat to this world, and we need to stop him now before he destroys everything."

* * *

"Good job Sammy," Teresa praised. A moment later they completed the salt circle. The demon screamed as she realized she had been caught. "It's okay Dean, she's trapped," Teresa said. Dean lowered the gun and ran to Sam's side, pulling his brother to his chest. "Both of you, look away," Teresa commanded. Sam pressed his face into Dean's shirt, and Dean closed his eyes. 

Teresa picked up with the exorcism rite, pleased to see it take immediate effect on the demon. However, it garnered Tim's attention.

"No!" Tim screamed, turning away from John and firing towards Teresa and the boys. The bullets embedded in the tree trunk just above Dean's head.

John's eyes widened in horror as he saw the direction Tim was shooting in, and he did not hesitate to fire his own gun.

One, two, three bullets all met their mark.

Three perfect shots, all in the exact same spot.

Tim's eyes latched on Teresa, betrayal and anger written in them just before they went dark. At the same time, crimson liquid slid down his face from the holes John Winchester's bullets cut through his skull. Tim's body fell forward, he was dead before he hit the ground. Behind him, John breathed heavily, arm still before him, gun still at the ready. Sweat poured off of him, and he seemed frozen in place, staring in horror at the sight before him.

"Amen." Teresa whispered the last word of the exorcism and the demon in the circle turned to smoke, disappeared screaming all the way back to Hell.

"Johnny… it's over," Teresa said, staring up at him. Her voice brought him back to his senses and he blinked rapidly. He put the safety back on the gun before dropping it as if it had burned him. He stared wordlessly at Teresa, shaking his head. "It's alright," she said quietly. "Everything's okay now." John turned to look at Tim's body, and then shook his head, forcing his eyes away. He instead focused on his sons, who still had their eyes closed and were wrapped around each other. John hurried over to the boys, dropping to his knees beside them and enveloping both in a strong embrace. He pressed his face against Dean's head, felt his soft hair against his cheek.

Bobby stirred from behind John, bringing a hand up to the slash on his chest and groaning in pain. He blinked and stared at the scene before him. He shone his flashlight on Tim's bloodied corpse, Teresa mostly-collapsed on the ground, and John clutching at his two boys. "You got it?" he asked Teresa. She nodded wordlessly, staring with sorrow at Tim.

"Are you okay?" she asked Bobby.

"I've had worse. Bitch just took me by surprise. We should get out of here. The boys don't need to be near this much longer," Bobby said as he stood up. He swayed slightly, pressing a hand to his chest. "Can you walk?" he asked Teresa.

She shook her head. "I think… something's wrong with my left side," she said. "I can't move my left leg."

"Holy shit, spinal injury?" he questioned with trepidation.

She nodded slowly and with resignation.

"Johnny," Bobby called as he approached the hunter. "We gotta get out of here."

John turned to his voice, nodding. "Come on boys, stand up but keep your eyes closed," John said.

"John… I'll take the boys, you need to help Tress," Bobby whispered as he came up behind him. "She can't walk and I'm in no state to carry her out of here."

John's attention whipped to Teresa, having forgotten about the bullet she took to protect his sons. "Alright." Bobby nodded, taking Dean's hand. Sam remained plastered to Dean's side, and both boys had their eyes obediently closed.

John knelt beside Teresa, hands ghosting over the injury on her back before he scooped her into his arms, one arm beneath her shoulders and the other holding up her knees. She rested her head against his shoulder and put her arms around his neck to lessen the strain.

"What about Tim?" John whispered to Bobby.

"We'll take care of him later, let's just get these boys to Jim's and Teresa to a hospital," he said.

John nodded, and the group headed out of the woods.

* * *

**A/N: I would love to know what you thought.**

**Thanks for reading,**

**Ada**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Sorry for the delay in posting, but that happens when one is in a foreign country drinking espresso and wine everyday and eating good food. Haha. A friend of mine visited over the weekend and basically gave me a vacation because all we did was sightsee and eat, 'twas wonderful. I'm off to Venice tomorrow, so I wanted to make sure this got up before I left.**

**Enjoy the final chapter!**

**Discalimer: Refer to previous chapter.

* * *

Bonds of Trust**

By: Ada C. Eliana

Chapter 6

* * *

Sam did not seem to really understand what had happened in the woods. When John questioned him about it, it appeared that there were many parts he didn't even remember, such as the times the demon bitch touched him and made him look at her. He continually referred to the demon as 'the bad lady' and Tim as 'the bad man'. He was confused as to why 'the good lady' (Teresa) was drawing circles on the ground with salt, but he said he knew it was important to her and that's why he helped her with it. All in all he seemed to believe the demon was just a bad person, and that in the end his daddy had saved them and that was all that mattered. John was relieved, he wanted to avoid the 'monsters are real' discussion with Sam for as long as he possibly could. 

When they escaped the forest, John had put Teresa in Jim's car and Bobby had gone with them to the hospital. John had taken the boys back to Jim's house, cleaned them up, looked them over, bandaged the burns on Sam's arms, and then put them to bed. Luckily the burns on Sam's skin were not too serious, and seemed to have begun fading as soon as the demon was exorcised. Both boys were exhausted and would sleep well through the night.

However, Dean was troubled. He asked John again and again why the man had tried to sacrifice them to the demon. John tried to explain, but in the end, all he could answer with was a resounding 'I don't know,' and that bothered him more than any other explanation.

John remembered Tim citing Teresa as knowing why he had done what he did, and he felt nervous about confronting her. Whatever Tim's reasons, most likely delusional ones, Teresa had saved his sons' lives, and that meant he owed her more than he had ever owed anyone in his life. Not to mention that according to the phone call from Bobby at 2am, Teresa had been sent into surgery to remove the bullet from her back, and initial scans were showing nerve damage to her left side.

Daniel and Joshua had returned to Jim's at the same time as John. Upon hearing that Teresa had been taken into surgery, both had headed to the hospital, leaving John alone in the quiet house with the sound of his sons' breathing and his thoughts.

He continually replayed the scene with Tim over and over in his mind, Tim's distraction, him firing his gun at the boys, John aiming his own gun and firing.

Firing over and over again.

Three shots, all dead on, all causing the death of another hunter, another person. John had killed before, it was hard to survive Vietnam without some blood on your hands, but never like that. Never before had he stood so close and fired with such maliciousness.

John had not seen Tim's eyes as he died, that moment went to Teresa who had been on the other side, but all the same he could imagine them, imagine what it was like to watch it. He had seen the pain and fear in Mary's eyes as she died, he could imagine what kind of a surprise Tim had felt, mowed down like that.

Not that Tim hadn't deserved to die. He had tried to kill Sammy and Dean. But that bothered John the most, he wished he knew why Tim had done it, why he had kidnapped his boys and tried to sacrifice them. It made no sense to John. Tim was a hunter, a good one if the stories John heard were true. He was in the photo on Jim's mantle, a group of hunters at a 4th of July barbeque, the smiling faces of Tim, Joshua, Daniel, Teresa, Bobby, Caleb, Jefferson, some people John would never meet – dead before their time, and others John had yet to be acquainted with. Tim did not seem the type of man to ally himself with the very creatures he fought against. And yet, he had. He never denied it in the woods, indeed he defended it, told John that Sam was going to be something dangerous, something terrible.

John thought of Mary, cut and burned in Sam's nursery, the way Sammy had been looking up at her, amused, when John first entered the room. John knew that Sam had been to young to understand, that he probably thought his mother was being silly by going on the ceiling like that, but still, there was a part of John that worried about the circumstances, that always had. Why had that demon killed Mary? And why in Sam's room, above Sam's crib? That could not have been coincidence, could it? What had Mary seen when she went into the nursery that night? John feared both the idea of discovering the truth, and of never knowing the truth. Both held the power to destroy him.

His hands itched for the bottle of whiskey Jim kept on the top shelf, to feel the burn down his throat and let his thoughts wander until his mind went numb. Instead he crept up the stairs to the spare room he had put the boys to sleep in, stood silently in the doorway watching the steady rise and fall of his boys' even breathing. They were curled up in the bed together, Dean's arm protectively over his brother, Sam burrowed under the blankets so only the very top of his head was visible.

John stared at Sam and immediately felt guilty for entertaining a train of thought that made his youngest part of the reason his wife died, that would lead to his youngest becoming a monster. There was nothing bad in Sam, not at all. He was a sweet child, always trusting, always faithful in his father and brother. He needed to remember that, no matter what Teresa might tell him later.

* * *

"Hey Tress," Bobby said softly from the doorway to Teresa's hospital room. The surgery had taken hours, and afterwards they hadn't let Bobby see her, told him to wait until visiting hours. So he had his chest stitched and bandaged, and his head examined, leaving him with what would become some nasty scars, and a minor concussion. 

Bobby watched as Teresa's eyes sluggishly turned to him. He expected to see her loopy on the amount of morphine coursing through her system, but instead she seemed strangely lucid. "Bobby," she said, beckoning him into the room.

He sat in the chair beside the bed. "How're you doing?" She glared at him in response. "Okay, stupid question. What did the doctors have to say?" They wouldn't go into the specifics with Bobby and he feared the response.

"I'm out," she whispered. "Twenty years of hunting and now I'm out," she said with a strangled sort of laugh. "A bullet and a lower level demon, what bullshit, what absolute goddamned bullshit."

"Tress…" Bobby began, reaching out to put his hand over hers.

"Don't, Bobby… just don't," she muttered, pulling her hand away. "The doctors said that when I hit the tree… the bullet dislodged from the muscle and pushed against my spine. No amount of physical therapy will ever correct the damage the bullet and the tree did to my spine. He said I'll be able to walk, but that's it. And my left leg will be prone to problems, some days I might not be able to move it at all. I can't hunt anymore."

"Twenty years is a good run," Bobby pointed out, unsure of what else he could say.

"I know that," she said quietly. "I really do, I mean with the amount of people who died… but I just never thought… I expected it to be a final showdown, you know? Me versus Yellow-Eyes, him returning to take back the favor of letting me live, a showdown, a blaze of glory, something different. And instead it was something so stupid, Tim and a lower-level demon. I turned my back on him. He had a gun on me and I turned around. How could I have been so goddamned stupid?!"

"Don't you dare blame yourself for this!" Bobby protested. "Tim shot you! After everything you've ever done for him! Why would you even think that he would consider pulling that trigger? This is not your fault."

"I didn't think he would pull it – I really didn't. And now he's gone."

"The boys are safe though Tressy, and that's thanks to you. You saved those kids."

_It was my fault they were in danger in the first place_, she wanted to say. She wanted to shout it, to tell everyone that it was her own stupidity that caused all of this. It was _her _journal that Tim had read, _her _journal that put Sam Winchester in the category of a potential psychic. And then she was the one who turned her back on Tim, who got herself shot, who barely saved Sam from the demon.

She squeezed her eyes shut, remembering the last time she fought that type of demon, remembered see the boy's veins burst, boiling blood coursing down his limbs, the demon lapping it up and moaning with pleasure. And she had just watched silently, doing nothing to save him as she worked to trap the demon. The horrified look on the boy's brother's face had been terrible. But she just exorcised the demon, called the police, and then carried the traumatized boy to the hospital. She could still see his shell-shocked eyes and hear his brother's screams in her mind as clearly as she had that day.

And she almost let it happen again, to Sam Winchester this time, because she had been stupid enough to get herself shot.

What a way to go out, what a way to retire. She almost wished that Tim or the demon had killed her.

"Tress, say something," Bobby pleaded. His eyes were wet, and she took a deep breath, trying to quell the rage growing inside of her.

"I just… I don't know what to do Bobby," she sighed finally. "For twenty years I've been living out of a Volkswagen bus with a weapons cache, fake IDs, and a stack of cash garnered from hustling pool and poker. What the hell am I supposed to do now?" She had no contingency plan for this, she lived day to day, thought of nothing besides the next hunt, piecing her demon theories together, and reminding herself of why she got into this business in the first place. Katrina… the memory of that girl, her best friend, her closest companion, still haunted her. She had vowed to one day solve the riddle and stop that demon, it was all that kept her going for so long. And even though she had realized that she may never achieve that, settling down never even occurred to her. Not since…

She turned to look at Bobby again, remembered a different time in her life, when she almost changed her life, almost included someone else in it. But it had been too long, she was too far away from the person she had been now, she couldn't change the past.

"I don't know Teresa," he said honestly, knowing that any empty words or praise would only incite her anger right now. She reached out her hand and he took it gently in his, rubbing his fingers over the calluses years of handling guns had built up. "But we'll figure it out. I promise you, you won't have to do this alone."

* * *

"Dad?" Dean said tentatively, breaking his father out of his musings. John sat at the kitchen table, his journal out in front of him as he described the demon and how to exorcise it. 

"Yeah Dean?" John asked, turning to his son.

Dean climbed up into the chair next to John and stared at him silently for a moment before finally speaking. "I messed up, Dad," he whispered.

"What do you mean?" John asked, tipping his eldest's chin up so he could see into his green eyes.

"I was supposed to protect Sammy, but he almost… When that guy came into the motel room, I tried, I really did, but I couldn't stop him. And then in the woods, that _thing_ got him, and would've killed him and I couldn't do anything to stop it." Dean's voice shook and his jaw trembled as his eyes filled with tears.

John shook his head and sighed. "That wasn't your fault, Dean, none of it. Tim was a human, you know, and for whatever reason, he targeted you boys. I know you did the best you could, you shouldn't feel guilty about what happened. I screwed up, dude, I left you two alone when I shouldn't have. And besides, you're fine, your brother is fine, it all worked out okay, right?"

"But that lady… she got us out Dad, she found us in the cave, and sent me and Sammy up ahead while she stayed back to try and stop that man. She's hurt, isn't she? I heard a gunshot, and she wasn't walking right, and then you had to carry her out of the woods. She's hurt because of me and Sammy."

"Dean, you know a little bit about what I do – the hunting."

"Right," Dean responded.

"And hunting is dangerous, every hunter knows that they might get hurt. But they do it anyway, to protect people. That's what that woman – Teresa – did. She's a hunter, Dean, and she did whatever was necessary to protect you and your brother. Do you understand what I'm trying to tell you?"

"Yeah, I think so," Dean responded tentatively. He opened his mouth to speak again when the door opened.

Daniel paused as he entered, knowing he had interrupted a private moment. "Just came by to get Teresa's journal," he explained stiffly.

"How's she doing?" John asked, rubbing a weary hand over his face.

"Her spine's damaged. She's not going to be able to hunt again, might not even walk properly again," Daniel sighed as he walked into a side bedroom. He came back holding a black journal in his hand. "But at least she's alive."

"I was going to swing by, there're some things I need to ask her. Do you think that'd be okay?" John asked carefully, the argument with Daniel and the many ways in which Daniel was right still too fresh in his mind.

"I'll ask her, okay? I better get back."

* * *

Teresa was lying flat on her back when John walked into the room, but her eyes were open and he somehow knew that she had noticed him the moment he stepped through the doorway, drugged to the gills or not. "I figured you would be by eventually," she said, "though I had my money on tomorrow morning. After all, I did just have surgery." 

"I would've waited if I thought I could, but I need to know something," John said stiffly, approaching the bed. He sat in the plastic chair so he would no longer tower over her. Teresa reached for the bed remote and pressed one of the buttons until the bed moved into something resembling a sitting position. She winced a bit as the stitches pulled, but gave no other indication of discomfort.

"What is it, John?" she asked.

"Back in the woods, I asked Tim why he tried to kill my boys. He told me I should ask you, that you knew the real reason. So what was it, Teresa, why did he do that?"

Teresa heaved a long sigh, unsure of how to even approach the subject. "There are some… theories… circulating," she began. "Some aren't very favorable towards your son, Sam."

"What theories, what are you talking about?" John demanded.

"The way your wife died, John… she's not the first woman to die like that. And some hunters think that maybe it has something to do with the babies," she said slowly.

"So Tim tried to kill Sammy because of Mary's death? He thought Sam somehow had something to do with it?"

"It's complicated John, but… I can't explain it all to you, not now."

"And why not? Do you know what killed my wife? Do you know what I'm searching for?"

"Oh John," she sighed, shaking her head, knowing what John was really searching for, even if he wasn't quite aware of it yet. "I don't have the answers you're looking for, only Mary knew that."

"You know more than you're saying though," John pushed. "I can tell."

"You can't find it all out yet, you're not ready," she argued. "Trust me, I've been in this business for two decades, I know what I'm talking about."

"Tell me the truth! What killed Mary?!" he shouted.

"Mary is the least of your worries right now, John. Mary is dead, you have to focus on your kids now."

"Everything I do, I do for my kids."

"Like leaving them alone in a cheap motel while you ran around playing hunter all weekend? Like leaving them completely unprotected and at the mercy of whatever or whoever happened by? Or how about dragging them so close to hunts, you don't think one of those creatures will go after them eventually? You want to take care of your kids, John? Then take them out of this world, settle down somewhere and give them a normal life, that's what they need."

"All of you hunters are so quick to dish out judgment, and you don't even know me or my boys."

"I know that hunting comes with danger, and for most hunters it comes with a shortened lifetime. I've seen plenty of men around your age get mowed down in a hunt; too slow, too cocky, too distracted, too scared, all of it. And you have kids, dependents. Most hunters are single, independent, no one counting on them, no family except for their car and their guns. We get into this business because we lost the only people that made life worth living and we know that we couldn't get through a day without some sort of reason to exist. And protecting other people from losing the people they love is the only way I got through these past twenty years. But you have family, John. You don't belong in this world, and if you stay in it, you and your kids are going to suffer, and all three of you will die long before your time."

"You think I can do any of that without Mary?"

"You're certainly not doing anything for her here. Would she want her kids raised with this? Everything you do, you do for no one except yourself. You're troubled, you're confused, you're seeing shadows everywhere, I get it, I understand, but you need to think about your life, then think about what your kids' lives are going to be like if you don't change something now, before it's too late."

"I've had this conversation too many times, with all sorts of people, and I'm still not going to change anything," John growled. "Now tell me what you know about Sam."

"You're not ready, John. Okay? I'm serious, you're really not ready. I know exactly how you'll react, I know what'll happen, and I'm not going to be the person who causes that. I promise you that when you need to know, I will tell you everything, but not a moment before."

John gritted his teeth, but knew he would not be able to force the truth out of her.

"But if you're going to keep hunting, you need to keep your kids away from the mainstream hunters. There are people you trust – Bobby, Jim – and that's fine, but you can't bring them to Harvelle's or any of the other roadhouses. The people who go there, they've lost too much of themselves, they're rough, and they kill anything they have suspicions about, no questions asked. Tim set up what he did because he didn't want to dirty his own hands, and because he had doubts, but these other men never have doubts, they just do what they believe to be right, living by their own warped moral code. So promise me you'll keep your boys away from all of that."

"I can do that," John agreed. He turned to the door and then paused. "Back in the woods…" he began tentatively. "I shot Tim, and…"

"Was that the first time you killed another human since you started hunting?" Teresa asked softly.

John nodded grimly.

"Don't beat yourself up about it, John. Sure Tim was a friend of mine once, but what he did… no matter how he may have justified it… you needed to protect your sons, you did what you had to do."

John nodded but seemed unconvinced. He would have to work his way though that on his own. "Teresa… thank you for protecting my sons," he said sincerely, remembering Dean's words earlier.

"You're welcome," she smiled.

"The boys are downstairs with Jim, they wanted to thank you themselves, but I wanted to make sure you were up for it first."

"Definitely."

* * *

The boys entered the room slowly, with a bit of apprehension. Teresa understood their fear, hospitals were never her favorite places either. Sammy smiled up at her when he entered, and walked over to the bed, Dean just behind him. 

"Thank you for helping us," Sammy said, climbing up on the chair in order to wrap his arms around her the best he could without jarring her injury. Teresa returned the hug, thinking of Tim's accusations, the things he called Sam, the things he foretold for Sam's future. She could not picture this child becoming the anti-Christ no matter what anyone said on the matter. She only hoped that life and hunting wouldn't change him, though she knew that no hunter made it through more than a year with any innocence remaining intact. Her heart ached for the boys, knowing that their father's stubbornness was setting them up for a life of weapons, violence, and risking their lives for strangers they would oftentimes never even meet.

"Thank you," Dean said once Sam released his hold on her and slid back to the floor. "I'm real sorry that you got hurt, ma'am," he added.

"I'm just glad that you two are alright. And you can call me 'Tressy'," Teresa responded. "Take care of your brother, okay?" she asked.

He smiled and nodded.

"Come on boys, time to go," John said from the doorway where he stood watching the exchange.

"Bye," Dean said, grasping Sam's hand to pull him towards the door.

"Bye Tressy," Sam called as Dean led him to the door.

"Bye boys."

* * *

"Have you given any thought to where you'll go for outpatient care?" Bobby asked. The Winchesters had left the hospital, and possibly Minnesota itself by now. Bobby, Jim, and Daniel had come by Teresa's room to visit. 

"I don't know," Teresa shrugged.

"You're more than welcome to stay at the rectory," Jim offered.

"No thanks Jim, I don't want the congregation getting any ideas about the two of us," she laughed. "I just think I want to get out of Minnesota, away from that forest."

"My cabin's got plenty of room," Daniel said.

"We would be at each other's throats in two minutes, Daniel, you know that," Teresa shook her head. Bobby whispered something to the two other men and they filed out without a word, leaving Bobby and Teresa alone.

"Why don't you come up to South Dakota?" he suggested. "A hospital's pretty close, I've hard it's good too."

"Bobby… we've been down that road…" Teresa began, uncomfortable.

"Not like that, Tress – just you and me, just two old hunting partners. I'll even let you rearrange my library. What do you say?" He sounded hopeful, and Teresa could not say no.

"Alright, we'll give it a try, but if I have the sudden urge to shoot you full of buckshot you'll have brought it on yourself."

"Deal."

* * *

John pulled up to a gas station. The sun had long since set and the boys were curled up under an old blanket in the back seat of the Impala. He exited the car, and being sure to keep the boys in his line of sight, he walked the short distance to a phone booth. Slipping the coins into the slot he waited and then dialed a number he had come to know very well. 

"Hi Ellen, it's John," he said tentatively. "Listen, I'm not going to be able to make it out for that hunt with Bill. Yeah, something's come up and I need to be elsewhere. Yeah, we're all fine, but I just think I need to stay in one place for a bit, let the boys settle a little before I go hunting again. Give my best to Bill. Thanks, bye." He sighed as he hung up the phone.

He sometimes wished he could give up hunting, but the fact was that hunting had become a necessary part of his life, part of who he was. He could no sooner give it up than he could walk without legs. It was the only thing that made him feel safe, that made him able to get out of bed in the morning, knowing that someday he could avenge Mary's death, that he could save his boys from that specter he somehow knew verged on the horizon. The boys would be okay, he would see to that. And he would never make the mistake of trusting the wrong people again.

* * *

**A/N: Yay it's finally done! I loved this story and I hope you did too, now however I can focus on other things. If you have any story ideas or suggestions, feel free to send them my way and I'll see what I can do. Thank you for reading, and leave me a review to let me know what you thought!**

**Thanks again!**

**Ada**


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